So the evil in her leaped and strove upward like a flame given fresh fuel and freer air.
CHAPTER XI.
The fragrant pink arbutus had replaced the snow-wreaths upon the hillsides, the downy whorls of the first fern fronds were pushing through the dark-brown leaves, the fragile hepaticas had opened their sweet eyes wide, when one morning Sidney took the sloping path which led up the hill overlooking Dole.
His face was pale and drawn, his grey eyes half distraught, his slender, nervous hands clinched as if to hold fast to some strand of hope, some last remnant of courage, some crumb of consolation for that moment when his soul, utterly bereft, should cry aloud in desolation.
Sidney Martin preached to his people sweet and wholesome sermons, instinct with the hopefulness and charity of one who believes that, “all things work together for good,” and that “the mute beyond is just,” but in his own soul was chaos.
Always sensible of his personal responsibility towards his fellows, he had now become almost morbid upon the subject.
The old workman had known Sidney better than Sidney had known himself, and his prophecies were being fulfilled.
Happy as Sidney was in his husbandhood, yet the possession of Vashti was not a narcotic strong enough to stupefy his keen spiritual nature.